The 2019 Fete took place on a wonderful warm summer day, with the colourful Parade leaving the Village Green headed by the Pipes and drums of Wirral Pipe Band, led by Pipe Major Chris Eyre. Our new Rose Queen Emily Bolton was accompanied by her retinue, Sofia, Ruby Lou, Elsa, Tara, Evelyn, Cara and Autumn. The retiring 2018 Rose Queen Jessica Mills followed with her team, who have accomplished their duties extremely well this year. The Fete compere was David Cummings who welcomed everyone to the Primary School field, and invited the Rector, Rev. Dr Stefan Collier to crown Emily as the 2019 Christleton Rose Queen. Emily gave an excellent speech in reply during which she thanked the organisers and everyone involved, and declared the “2019 Fete Open”
Judging of the fancy dress followed, with Alf Croston again winning the first prize, this time dressed as an “Old Rocker”, with children from the Pre School winning the Junior Prize. The theme of the Fete was Christle-stock, on the 5oth Anniversary of the original Festival at “Woodstock” when it is estimated that over 500,000 people turned out for what became a free festival expressing the movement of “Popular Music” and “the original summer of love”. We didn’t see that number of people in Christleton, but there were lots of stalls around the perimeter of the field, and the arena had some excellent musical acts to entertain the visitors.
The first entertainment in the arena came from the Wirral Pipe Band who performed their skills of piping & drumming with great aplomb. They were followed by guitarist Jonny Daniel making a welcome return this year, and accompanied by Katie for some delightful items during his set. This item was followed by a group of energetic young dancers from Buckley, known as the Flash Mob and led by their teacher Anna Wooding.
The Prize draw followed with superb prizes of 1 Amazon Alexa, 2 Fitbit Blaze, 3 a family ticket to the Grosvenor Park Outdoor Theatre.
Fetes such as ours at Christleton need a great deal of financial support to enable the overall aim of providing generous donations to help the running of Village Organisations. This year the main sponsors were;
CNS Business IT Support Services, The Ring O Bells, The Shutter Shed, Clay & Rock, Flight Graphics, Thomas Estate Agents, Spitting Feathers Brewery, Abbey Gate Collage, Osprey windows, The Cheshire Cat & Christleton Primary School & School Association.
The final act of the afternoon on stage was Music from the Radi8tors a very popular rock band from Wirral. They have been together for 10 years and play the length & breadth of the country, including at the recent Spitting Feathers Beer Festival where they proved a great hit. The group, Mike Hughes, Peter Cunningham, Steve Newbiggin and Josh Roberts were extremely lively and provided some excellent music for the audience to listen to, and for those enthusiasts who wished to “rock & roll”.
The Fete depends on so many people to enable it to continue and a special thanks to Dawn Sturgess and her team for continuing to provide the organisation, and the infrastructure again this year. Thanks also to all the stall holders and those who provide games and attractions, and of course to all who attended. I would like to say a special thank you to the Rose Queens and their retinue’s because they are the ones who will keep this tradition going in the future, being very much part of our village heritage, an event that has gone on since at least 1875, together with the Village show which pre dates it held first in 1871.
David Cummings
